Wimbledon 2011 Day 10: Lisicki v Sharapova

After all her trials and tribulations, and her smiling all the way through, Lisicki had won a lot of fans on her way to the semi-final – could she go one better?
She opened proceedings very comfortably, by holding her serve, and causing a buzz around the court by breaking Sharapova very early, and holding again to have a 3-0 lead at the first change of ends.





Sharapova got herself onto the board but more by luck than judgement, given her liberal spraying of DFs and UEs all around.
Not that Lisicki had it easy – missing a lot of first serves, which is dangerous where Sharapova is concerned and the result was a break for Sharapova






Nerves seemed to be getting in the way for both as there were DFs all around, but both managed to hold their serves.






Sharapova began to exert some pressure now with a hold and another break on the Lisicki serve. Sabine was looking pretty agitated and seemed to have an issue with her racquet, actually swapping it mid-game and gesticulating a lot to her box - as if they had been string to the wrong tension. Of course she hadn’t been so animated when she was 3-0 ahead, so not really sure if that was the issue.



Despite DFs galore, Maria came out to serve for the set and took it.

Sabine started the next set very badly – broken in the first game on a Double-Fault, and (somewhat unfairly) not able to capitalise on a lot of DFs from Maria, who managed to hold.
With Lisicki broken again in the third, she started to complain about the spitting rain but was told to play on, so had to just put a top on instead (like a lot of the spectators!). At the stage she certainly needed a rain break, if only to go find her game, which was presumably somewhere ion the locker room!



Sabine steadied the ship a bit with a break on the Sharapova serve, and we all thought that this was the start of a turnaround, because we’d already been treated to a competitive match previously – we wanted more of the same!
Alas no. Sabine got broken on her next game.

What we were seeing was some great rallies now and Sabine had some good chances to break again with Maria throwing in DFs all over the place, but somehow she held.
Sabine also wobbled on her serve and it looks as through Maria would break to win, but Sabine also squeaked a hold.

Maria, serving at 5-2 continued with the skay play, giving Sabine a late ray of hope and a break.
But sadly Sabine was the victim of that awful “lose on a DF” that seemed to be the order of the day, taking Maria the Wimbledon final in a disappointing end to what had promised to be a thrilling match up.
However, take nothing away from Lisicki’s comeback – it just seemed to be a match too far and certainly in the second set, Maria’s returning had just been superb.